


One-Handed

by cat_77



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Gen, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24241159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_77/pseuds/cat_77
Summary: There’s a saying about doing things with one hand tied behind your back.  An arm in a sling is a close enough comparison in her mind.
Relationships: Dani Powell & team
Comments: 1
Kudos: 26





	One-Handed

It happens on a case because of course it does. For once, it isn’t Bright that ends up with a trip to the emergency room when things inevitably go wrong. It’s Dani.

“I’m fine,” she insists when she steps into the precinct office. She repeats the words again when Magers clears some crap out of the aisle as she approaches her desk. She repeats them again when Chandler sets a napkin with a donut on it next to her monitor. She keeps the donut though because she’s not an idiot and it’s actually the kind she likes. She says them one more time as she enters the room where the rest of her team waits for her, Banch opening the door for her like she’s some kind of invalid.

“Pretty sure those words were banned from this room,” Bright says by way of greeting.

“Pretty sure you’re the one who banned them because of him,” JT points out easily enough.

Those two don’t baby her though, which is nice. They even try to make it look like they’re barely keeping an eye on her movements, though she knows they’ll catch her chair if it tries to roll back when she sits down, probably even catch her if she starts to go down with it.

She sits and opens the file JT slides over to her and hears the huff when Arroyo turns away from the board and finds her there. “Is this a thing now?” he asks the air around him. He clearly isn’t expecting an answer as he keeps going with, “One of you gets hurt and has the option of actual downtime and comes in anyway? You could be at home, resting, playing video games or watching bad movies instead of coming in to deal with this crap.”

“I’ve seen all the movies I care about and don’t play video games even when both hands are working,” she replies with a quirk of her lips.

“Heathen,” JT says without heat. He’s fairly certain she would blow his usual gaming partner out of the water if she just gave it a shot, or at least that’s what he tells her on a regular basis. 

“It’s the hands thing I’m trying to point out here,” Gil tells her. He gestures to her cast, to the sling she’s wearing to counteract the weight of it against her decently bruised back and shoulder and to remind her not to use it, as if that alone makes his point.

She holds her pen in her good hand and wiggles it in his direction just to see the frown it makes. “I’m good,” she insists as blandly as possible. 

“Technically she’s not breaking the rules because she said ‘good’ instead of ‘fine’ this time,” Bright says cheerfully. She has the feeling he’ll try to use that against them in the future.

Gil shakes his head and mutters something that sounds suspiciously like, “You’ve been a horrible influence on my team, kid.”

Bright for his part, just smiles widely. “But I’ve been an influence!” he boasts. He spins one of his damned suckers in his hand before he tears off the paper and pops it into his mouth. She takes an extra second to check on him, but JT has already texted her the details. Bruises only, a tiny abrasion that’s barely visible across the back of his hand. He hadn’t even needed stitches this time. She’d put it on the calendar, but knows he’s enough of a smartass that he’ll add a note about her right next to it.

But that’s fine though. He’s safe because she did her job. She had pushed him out of the way so that Phillips couldn’t use him as a human shield and even managed to disarm Phillips in pretty much the same move. What reasonably could be called a tussle ensued, and she had gotten tossed up against a table made of some fancy stone and wood that she was sure Bright had one of a similar make in his own apartment somewhere. It was solid; her arm was not. She had still managed to draw her weapon and hold the jerk at bay for the few minutes it took for Tarmel and Arroyo to secure the rest of the scene and it was only when he was in cuffs that she relented enough to admit the pain.

It’s a clean break and doesn’t need screws or plates or anything elaborate. Somehow Bright being involved means she gets a little nicer cast than Banch had when she had broken her own wrist a few years back. That, or the tech and materials have changed in the interim, she isn’t being picky and he isn’t looking for validation on that bit, so she’s letting it slide for now.

He’s watching her though, not with pity or anything stupid like that. She shifts and internally sighs when the damned sling catches on her hair again. It’s annoying, but so many things are in life, so she moves on. 

Bright apparently does not.

He stands and does the thing where he holds up a finger to say he’ll be just a minute versus actually using his words. She doesn’t need a sucker landing on her shirt when he walks by, so she lets him go. Now it’s her turn to watch as he goes not to his desk but her own. She’d be upset that he’s digging in her drawers but the guy has like zero sense of personal boundaries so she waits to see what he’s up to this time. He returns with one of her hair ties and waves it at her. She reaches for it, then winces when she tries to manipulate her arms into the right position. He simply steps behind her, binder still in hand, and gets to work before she can object.

“You going to let him touch your hair?” JT asks, surprised.

She gestures to her cast and replies, “What, you want to instead?”

He snorts at that. “Tally says I’m not allowed anywhere near anyone’s hair that’s longer than an inch,” he tells her. “There was an incident involving that plaster stuff for holes in walls a few years back. Then another one with one of those glue guns. I made her a promise after that one.”

She figures Bright will yank her curls into a ponytail or something simple like that. She’s not sure what he’s doing, but he’s clearly not done yet. He must have grabbed some bobby pins at the same time as her hair tie as he slides a couple of those in too and she finds herself with something that might be a low bun or twist of some sort that manages not to yank against her scalp or leave bits to be caught by the sling. She doesn’t bother checking it in a mirror, JT’s raised eyebrows and the almost reflection from the window tells her it doesn’t suck.

“And you learned to do this where?” JT asks because he can.

“An ex of mine was in a car crash and was threatening to chop it all off out of frustration,” Bright replies with a shrug. His hands are fluttering as if he’s debating if he needs to make adjustments. Considering he even remembered the trick to twist the shorter pieces at the front so that they’d stay in with the rest of it, she doubts that it’s necessary.

“Did you YouTube it, or did your mom hire a stylist to teach you?” JT questions before she can ask the same thing. He, of course, also adds, “And are we ignoring the fact you just implied someone actually agreed to date past you?”

“Guys should know how to do their partner’s hair, or at least help out as needed,” Malcolm says when he returns to the other side of the table, completely unperturbed, that damned sucker still between his teeth. His eyes grow wide and he corrects himself with, “Not that you are my partner, not in that sense, I mean…”

She cuts her good hand through the air and he stops immediately. “Thank you,” she tells him. Then, in case he doesn’t get it because it is Bright she’s talking to, she adds, “It’s appreciated.”

She makes the mistake of glancing over at Arroyo, who looks like he’s biting his tongue. When he manages to school his face into something remotely professional, he asks, “Are we ready to work here now? Need some hairspray? Are we doing each other’s nails next?”

She rolls her eyes but Bright is the one who replies, “Never learned nails. My mother has always had hers and Ainsley’s done by a professional manicurist. I can ask her for a recommendation if you want? I’m sure they can work around the cast. You and Gil can get matching colors.”

There’s a glint of humor in his eyes that lets her know he’s teasing about the first part – the second part is obvious enough – but she still replies, “Pretty sure I can’t afford a Whitly manicure.”

“Pretty sure my mother would foot the bill for saving my life,” Bright counters readily enough. Then, because he can tell she’s getting uncomfortable with the admission, he adds, “She’d probably do a full wardrobe for all of you if you gave her the chance. I know she’s been dying to update JT’s shirts, and she’s been after Gil’s turtlenecks for years.”

“Would I get one of those white Fantasy Island suits?” JT asks with mock excitement. When Malcolm nods eagerly, just as mockingly, he deadpans, “Pass.”

Gil snaps his fingers and she swears she hears him mutter the word “children” under his breath, but it’s sign enough for them to get back to their actual jobs. They start in on the available evidence from a double homicide from the night before and work straight on through until he calls time for lunch. She originally planned on grabbing something from the diner about a block down, or maybe the hotdog cart, but it is not to be. She still gets stuff from the diner, but she’s not alone while doing so. She knows JT usually prefers elsewhere, just as she knows it’s his way of telling her that she’s not going anywhere unaccompanied anytime soon, which is just silly as she literally lives alone. 

Bright and Arroyo join them less from being asked and more from simply following. She’s careful to order something she can eat with a fork that doesn’t involve cutting, yet Bright still butters some bread for her without a word. She doesn’t even know if there’s anything he can eat at the place without making himself sick, but he makes a valiant effort and goes for soup and one of the plainest salads she’s ever seen. She never sees the bill, and she can’t honestly say which one of them grabs it before her.

She’s allowed to drive herself home that night mainly because no one is stupid enough to take her keys from her. She half-watches the news while eating a far more elaborate salad of her own that she picked up along the way knowing anything major will likely end up in their laps by the next day anyway. Eventually, she brushes out her miraculously snarl-free hair and gets ready to lay down only to get distracted by something outside her window. It’s a uniformed cop in a cruiser, just happening to pass by, just like he happened to pass by about six times already. She’d complain, but she herself has set up extra surveillance on both Tarmel and Bright when they’ve been injured in the past, so she decides to suck it up and live with it. 

The next morning involves questioning possible witnesses/suspects. Well, involves that after she consumes another breakfast gifted to her by the unknown. This one’s a pan con queso from the panaderia a few blocks away. Banch catches her in the bathroom this time and holds up a pack of binders in offering. She braids her hair for her and ties it off with a, “Us girls need to look out for each other. Can I ask who did yours yesterday? I want tips.”

She huffs with laughter and admits, “You’re not going to believe this, but it was Bright.”

“The accident-prone profiler?” Banch verifies. At her nod, she grins and says, “That actually makes sense on some level. See if he’s willing to share his talents with the rest of the class?”

“He’ll share with literally anyone who’s remotely nice to him,” she promises, and knows she’s not wrong.

Banch smiles wide now and pretends to smooth a non-existent flyaway from her own perfect braid. “I can do nice,” she insists. Given that the blonde woman beside her once intimidated a robber into giving up the goods with neither drawing her weapon nor saying a word, Dani kind of doubts that. “For real, though, if you need anything, let me know? Groceries, an extra bag to wrap the cast in when you bathe, that sort of thing. Any of us are willing, and able. I know how much it sucks to try to carry some takeout with one of those things, let alone much more.”

She knows her own team has made the same offers, but apparently the office as a whole is available. Not that she’ll take it. Too much pride, and all that. A glance in the mirror at Banch’s handiwork though, and she agrees, “Might take you up on the braiding skills, but I should be good on everything else.”

Banch smiles and holds up her hands in the universal sign that she’s not going to push. “If you change your mind, I’m here,” she promises, and then leaves to go about her day.

Two of the witnesses come into the station itself, if witness is the correct descriptor for them. They saw precisely nothing and even their statements slightly contradict each other. They are looking for either a smaller man or a butch woman with either long or short hair and light or dark skin. That limits it down to about seventy percent of the city as far as far as she’s concerned, but she thanks them anyway and lets someone else show them the door.

One of the other witnesses refuses to come in but is willing to take no more than twenty minutes if they come visit him at his job. She wants to call him an arrogant asshole, but he’s a high-power attorney type, so that would be redundant. His graying hair is slicked back with too much product, and his suit rivals one of Bright’s for price. Sadly, he saw nothing but the possible assailant’s shoes as he cowered under his client’s secretary’s desk the whole time. Those he describes with far too much detail and she stops him before he can go on to the shine from the linoleum or something like that. She knows he’s just trying to prove he did pay actual attention, probably to make up for the whole hiding thing.

There’s just one problem, or technically two. His client was one of the deceased which means there will be the usual back and forth over attorney-client privilege that she despises – seriously, he’s dead and the guy/girl could be coming after him next, be a sport and spill. The second issue makes itself known when his own secretary screeches that someone is not allowed in without an appointment. Given that the screech is cut off abruptly about the time there is a muted pop that sounds remarkably like a silencer, she draws her weapon.

Arroyo and Tarmel draw theirs at the same time, with JT advancing towards the door and Gil mistakenly thinking Bright is actually going to stay behind him. The door bursts open and there’s a choir of voices demanding that the short guy with a ponytail drop his weapon. He sees the error of his ways, kind of, and takes off out of there, but not before he fires a shot randomly to try to get them to duck or flinch or something. There’s the shatter of glass from the giant sixth story window, and then the sound of footsteps while they all chase after him.

Well, try to chase. She barely takes a single step before she hears, “Powell, secure the scene!” She knows this is necessary for forensic purposes, as well as just Gil trying to make his injured person stay behind. Surprisingly, Bright doesn’t fully join the fun with the others. He peeks out the door and grabs some fancy throw blanket from the leather couch against the wall and uses it to apply pressure against the gunshot wound to the secretary’s upper arm. He whispers reassuring words to the man while she checks on the lawyer to find him mainly just pissed off with a tiny scratch from the flying glass and the wind doing its best to destroy the gel job.

“Anyone you know?” she asks, figuring she might as well get some information out of him while he’s still distraught. 

He’s shaking as he sits heavily in his chair, but nods. “Mr. Gaultier fired them three weeks ago. Said they had ties to things he didn’t want his own business involved in. They threatened to sue for violation of the hiring contract, but I didn’t think…”

And that’s when the words hit her. They. Not him. Plural. 

She whips around towards the door and suddenly the varying descriptors make sense. While the man who took the shot had his long dark hair pulled back, the woman approaching her now has lighter hair to match her lighter complexion, and it’s cut in some weird variation of a pixie cut. She also has a gun of her own and is aiming it right at her.

“You don’t want to do this,” Dani warns.

The woman glances at where her arm is free of the sling but still in an obvious cast, her own perfectly serviceable arms steady, and grins. “I think I do,” she says. “I take you, I take him, and then I take what’s owed to us.”

Dani’s ready to take something of her own, namely the shot, save for the fact Bright is now creeping towards the target. She’s a damn good markswoman, but he’s the unluckiest guy she knows and she’s not sure she’s willing to take that chance with only one arm to control the trajectory. That option is pretty much taken away anyway when woman either catches a shadow or simply senses that there’s someone else behind her. 

The woman turns and fires once, then turns back to fire again, but Dani gets to her first. She hits her shoulder, purposefully aiming high as Bright has ducked low and, together, they get her disarmed and cuffed. She checks Bright over because she’s not stupid, and then grabs some tissues from the box on the desk to hold to his ear where the woman’s bullet whizzed by close enough to graze him. She’ll think about that particular near miss later and, for now, calls in a backup unit and an ambulance for the secretary as she knows Bright won’t go anyway.

Gil and JT return with their guy in cuffs, take one look at the situation in the office, and curse colorfully and loudly. The loud is good as apparently the shot was close enough that Bright is pretty much deaf in his left ear until the ringing goes down. “I’m fine,” he practically shouts.

“Thought we weren’t allowed to say that,” she counters with a smile to hide her gratitude that the bullet hadn’t been an extra inch or two in a certain direction.

He’s miraculously managed to not get any blood on his fancy suit, only his hands and barely even there. She’s not injured any worse than she was at the start of the day, though the broken window has moved on from the attorney’s gel to attack her braid. Gil asks her if she’s alright and she shrugs a yes, though her body betrays her enough that she winces at the action. When he raises a knowing eyebrow, she deflects with, “Did Bright’s ear stop bleeding yet?”

It works as she knew it would and she hears JT chuckle behind her, knowing precisely what she’s doing. Bright himself doesn’t chuckle, but narrows his eyes at her in an accusing manner as Gil’s got his attention focused on him instead. He gets his ear bandaged and she gets a pint of Ben and Jerry’s for dinner. 

All in all, she thinks over a scoop of perfectly softened goodness, the day could have ended much, much worse.


End file.
